Creating a "magic goggles" effect
I guess the proper way to do this would be via compositing, but in Cycles, the Light Path node can take you some way.. it's a bit of a fudge, and may depend on your scene:

The torus in the little shot below uses this tree:

'Is Transmission' ensures that the torus material will emit whenever seen through another transmissive material, and is 'OR'ed by the Maximum with:
'Ray Depth &gt; 2', which means that surrounding objects appear illuminated when seen through the glass, but not otherwise.. the discrimination isn't perfect in all situations, there might be a tiny bit of bounce from the torus when not seen through the glass, but seems good here:


(The glass is 2-sided, it has thickness)